1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to molecular biology, and more particularly to the synthesis of genes and other nucleic acid molecules.
2. Description of Related Art
To test hypotheses in the field of genomics, and to synthesize designed proteins and organisms with tailored genomes, cost-effective methods for synthesizing nucleic acid molecules with a high degree of fidelity to an intended nucleotide sequence are required. Recently, efforts to synthesize genes accurately while controlling costs have yielded methods including microchip-based gene synthesis and PCR-based gene assembly technologies. While these conventional technologies provide the capability to synthesize multiple genes, reducing errors introduced into the desired gene-sequence remains challenging. To avoid the problems with sequence errors inherent in gene synthesis, some have focused on purifying the oligonucleotides that are used at the early stages of the synthesis process. However, these oligonucleotide purification approaches are costly, and sequence errors persist and propagate through the subsequent steps of the synthesis process.
What is desired is a way to synthesize genes and other nucleic acid molecules with a greater yield of molecules having a desired nucleotide sequence. An approach that can correct sequence errors at a much later step in the synthesis process makes the desired increase in nucleotide sequence accuracy possible, while allowing the process to be cost-effective.